Posted
by
samzenpus
on Sunday January 13, 2013 @10:09AM
from the compare-and-contrast dept.

DeviceGuru writes "A handful of innovative high-tech startups have recently emerged to create a new market: remote telepresence robots. With one of these robotic Avatars, you can wander around in the remote environment, chatting with coworkers and managers, attending meetings, and solving problems encountered through those interactions. InformationWeek's Telepresence Robot Smackdown compares five such bots — the MantaroBot TeleMe, VGo Communications VGo, Anybots QB, Suitable Technologies Beam, and Revolve Robotics Kubi — and includes short videos demonstrating each. As the article concludes, 'bear in mind that what we're witnessing here is the emergence of a new industry; and if Moore's Law applies here as it does to so many IT spheres, it won't be long before these gadgets are inexpensive, commonplace, and far more flexible and intelligent."

Yeah, but it's such a cool idea!! Like video conferencing - sooo groovy! Never mind that it's been marketed and failed over and over an over again (most recently by Apple with Facetime, but also by just about every single large tech company in the past 40 years). VCs will never tire of throwing bazillions at it.

video conferencing (even lame webcam types) works great. It won't replace a face to face meeting, but it's a heck of a lot better than everyone on a conference call. And if you are coordinating with people who are a day's travel away, burning 2 days of travel for a 1 hour meeting means that even if the video conference is 1/10th as efficient as a live meeting, you're still ahead of the game. (I'm sorry, I don't count the ability to kind of sort of work on a plane, even in business class, as being a substitute for being in your office with your resources close at hand)

And if you have a high end telepresence setup like the one from Cisco with the fancy sound and video system, it's pretty amazingly close to being there in person. The big thing you miss is the ability to have side conversations, but text messaging/im/fast email sort of replaces that (while, unfortunately, leaving a discoverable documentation trail, something that a whispered aside does not).

One of the most valuable aspects of video conferencing is that it fixes the problem with straight teleconferences where you have a big group in one place and singletons in others. In the latter, there's no good way for the singleton to get the attention of the big group. But with videoconferencing, your smiling or grimacing face is down in the corner of their screen, and when you wave, they remember you are there.

Ever read about the Heathkit HERO and the general love for robots in the 1980s? This is about as new as a mullet.

Comparing modern robots to a HERO makes as much sense as comparing an Altair 8800 to a Galaxy S3. Sure, in principle they have similarities, but processing power, networking, imaging, etc., have all improved a thousand-fold or more. Once telepresence is "good enough", it will revolutionize the workplace. No only will telecommuting become much more common, but it will also make it easier to offshore jobs that require a local presence. This will accelerate the global leveling of prosperity levels. There

Unfortunately your comparison doesn't hold. The Altair was a large box that could process a little information for a lot of money. The S3 is smaller, cheaper and can process more information. Everything has changed.

However, a robot still has to deal with the same physical world, the same uneven floors, dirty carpets, pets, limited battery life and the general real world physicality. It doesn't matter if you have a better processor since the actual "rubber hits the road" part of the robot hasn't changed, a

Do you want a hugely expensive robot to wash your dishes like a robotic human doll because you saw it in sci-fi, or do you want a perfectly adapted dishwasher for 200$ to do it?

I want the humanoid robot. Because, in addition to washing dishes, it can clear the table, and put the dishes away after they are cleaned and dried. It can also cook dinner, wash and fold the laundry, mow the lawn, vacuum the carpets, etc.

I have disagree re: 3D printing to die out in a few more years-- we were doing it in the 90's with 10' tall machines making design prototypes. It was prohibitively expensive for anything else. Now it's much cheaper and much more widespread. It reminds me of the computer's transition from mainframe to PC's. I really think it's the future of manufacturing.

Why not just have skype/similar video conferencing software and a few web cams in a different offices?

What do I get by having a webcam-on-wheels?

Perhaps the answer is that the distance person controls where they move to... so an issue of power? But I can see low-powered workers subverting that very easily ("oops, sorry, I forgot I put some boxes down, that why you can't come through here. Wait just one moment... / Oh dear we had a small oil spill / the IT techs are working under the carpets... so your robot won't be able to come into Room X123 today....)

thoughts? Ideas on the benefits of these devices? Down the line maybe if they have arms and can get involved rather than just talking. But while it's just talking then why not webcams?

Why not just have skype/similar video conferencing software and a few web cams in a different offices?

What do I get by having a webcam-on-wheels?

Perhaps the answer is that the distance person controls where they move to... so an issue of power? But I can see low-powered workers subverting that very easily ("oops, sorry, I forgot I put some boxes down, that why you can't come through here. Wait just one moment... / Oh dear we had a small oil spill / the IT techs are working under the carpets... so your robo

On a serious note, what kind of strange issues will this create with HR? Am I working in the office or not? If not, why do they say I'm not? I personally think these things are pretty hokey, but it will be interesting to see how they jive with a real office and the people in it.

Just think, once everyone is using these we can shrink an office building down to the size of an armoire. Everyone's bot can scurry around the small building being in each other's presence. It will save oodles of money. Of course, once we've done that, we'll realize that the office building is a logical concept that doesn't need a physical presence, and we'll create a virtual office, with virtual presence bots, where everyone roams the virtual halls. And we'll call it WOW or Minecraft, or something like that. World of MeetingCraft?

I've seen several programs about children with severe allergies that cannot attend school with other kids. The telepresence robots allow them to virtually attend school, and participate in normal classes alongside their class mates. They can go to recess with their classmates, go to the cafeteria, and in general interact with the classroom, the teacher, and the other students in a way that they find to be pretty natural. Sure a webcam and screen would work, but being able to drive remotely and interact as kids do has proved to be very successful. The other kids interact with his avatar robot just as if he were really there. It's quite encouraging to for a child who otherwise would be extremely isolated.

Maybe these are edge cases, but they do prove how this sort of technology can work.